marine science

It’s generally thought that baleen whales are too large to be successfully attacked by most marine predators. Orcas are typically considered the only real predatory threat to large whales, and even they have to use teamwork to take down a young whale. Large sharks, which also sit near the top of the marine food web, […]

OPAH, OPAH, OPAH! Recently scientists at NOAA’s South West Fisheries Science Center made a stunning discovery, the worlds first known warm-blooded fish, the moonfish, opah (Lampris guttatus). Until this recent discovery all fish were considered cold-blooded ectotherms – allowing their body temperature to fluctuate with the change in ambient ocean temperature. However, opah’s are different, in that these […]

A longtime submariner I know tells the story of a most unusual dive. On this particular plunge, they went down into the briny deep to place what can best be described as a giant manhole cover on the seafloor. There was a hole, and, by all accounts, the sea was draining in to it. For more […]

Dr. Ryan Kempster is a shark biologist in the Neuroecology Group at the University of Western Australia. Ryan founded the shark conservation group Support Our Sharks to inform the world about the plight of the most vulnerable shark species. His research focuses on the sensory biology and conservation of sharks and rays. Sharks have always been […]

Stacy Aguilera is an Abess Fellow at the University of Miami. Her dissertation research focuses on why certain small-scale fisheries in California are relatively successful, from a social and ecological perspective. Follow her on Twitter here! As my favorite little green guy once said, “Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.” Yoda may […]

Geoffrey Shideler is the Assistant Editor at Bulletin of Marine Science, an independent peer-reviewed journal at the Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami. Studying the ocean at night can be difficult. Yet this is precisely the time when many fish are most active. Scientists have found that many important […]

Most people have heard of cone snails. They are the genus of venomous marine snails that shoot a poisonous “dart” (hypodermic-like modified radula tooth attached to a venom gland) to attack and paralyze their prey before feeding on it. Smaller cone snails primarily hunt and prey on marine worms, while the larger ones hunt fish. […]

Many of the U.S. state-level shark fin bans which make it illegal to buy, sell, or possess shark fins include exemptions for smooth and spiny dogfish, i.e. by far the most common species of sharks caught by U.S. fishermen. Some of these fisheries have significant conservation concerns associated with them. Much of this fishing is not currently […]

Last week I had the good fortune of attending the NC Oyster Summit, hosted by the NC Coastal Federation in the Museum of Natural Sciences. We talked about the wonders that oyster restoration and aquaculture development can do for water quality, economic development, and taste buds. We enjoyed the demonstration of ‘merriore’, or the taste […]

You have probably heard that as the global climate changes due to human influence the sea surface is going to rise and the oceans will get warmer and more acidic. The bit about the oceans increasing in acidity is particularly troubling because it implies calcium carbonate based organisms (oysters, snails, corals, etc.) will simply dissolve […]